


eighty-eight

by kareofbears



Series: five days, five prompts 2020 [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Pacific Rim AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:07:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kareofbears/pseuds/kareofbears
Summary: He had been at this for six hours now, and it only seems like every spar is getting shorter and shorter—it’s like each candidate is forgetting that it’s more about feeling the connection, and less about bashing the end of their stick into his skull.Eighty-seven times Akira had been hopeful that this would be his next partner. Eighty-seven times Akira had been let down.
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji
Series: five days, five prompts 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046812
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51





	eighty-eight

**Author's Note:**

> day two! the request was a pacific rim au <3

Eighty-seven. 

Akira twirls the long, smooth staff in his hand as he waits for his previous opponent to scuttle off of the fighting mat of the Kwoon Room, bored. He had been at this for six hours now, and it only seems like every spar is getting shorter and shorter—it’s like each candidate is forgetting that it’s more about feeling the connection, and less about bashing the end of their stick into his skull. 

Eighty-seven times Akira had been hopeful that this would be his next partner. Eighty-seven times Akira had been let down. 

He rolls his shoulder, feeling some stiffness there. How it’s possible that his body seems to be cooling down after dozens of fights seem ridiculous. 

He misses the Jaeger. Not really the fighting aspect of it, but the feeling of being able to _stretch._ The feeling of using every inch of himself to do something, to propel something that’s impossibly huge. 

Sure, he misses the Jaeger. But if he had a choice of being Akechi’s partner again or being swallowed by a kaiju, then the answer is pretty obvious. 

“You done zoning out there, Kurusu?” 

Akira’s blinks, eyes focusing on the next candidate, and doesn’t know how he could have missed him. 

Startingly lean, hair bleach-blond with a boyish grin to top it off, he looks more like a phys-ed teacher’s assistant for some high school than an actual candidate for a mech in a war. 

“Just about,” he answers. “Got a name?” 

It doesn’t matter what he says—Akira would probably forget it in a few minutes. 

Instead of answering, his partner swings his wooden staff around slowly and with more care than Akira would expect of his brutish appearance. He points his stick impossibly close to Akira’s face. 

“How about I tell you once I’m your partner?”

He can’t help it; Akira smiles, just a little. If anything, this will be a refreshing match compared to the others. 

“Deal.” A shame though, that he’ll never learn his name. Maybe he’ll ask around the base if anyone knows it. Akira pulls back his staff, poised and relaxed. “Ready when you are.” 

His partner spins his staff once and falls into a starting position. 

This was Akira’s favorite moment in sparring sessions—the anticipation of whether or not the person in front of you will be the one you’ve been looking for, the one who’ll inevitably become your other half for the rest of your life. After eighty-seven times, however, that anticipation had ebbed away. 

Before Akira can take a breath, the end of the staff is pressed against the base of his throat. 

“One to zero,” the boy smiles, falling back to his starting position. 

Akira raises an eyebrow. “You’re fast.”

“I know.” 

He rolls his shoulders, willing the stiffness to leave him.

A moment of stillness settles between them, waiting for the other to move first.

His partner strikes forward, a blur to anyone that might be watching. But for what he has in speed, Akira makes up for in precognition—quick sidestep and a soft shin to the back of his knees causes him to stumble. Before his partner can turn, the hard end of Akira’s staff makes him pause. 

“One to one.” 

This time, his partner doesn’t even wait for them to recuperate; a tightened grip on his staff was all the warning that Akira got before a staff comes hurtling towards him. He bends backward, shoulders touching the mat, and flips back with one hand to propel himself on his feet. 

Akira tries to swipe him off his feet, but it’s as if his partner has lightning strapped to the bottom of his soles—for whatever speed tactic Akira tries on him, his partner dodges, parries, and retaliates with twice the speed.

On the flip side, Akira can read his partner’s expressions and body language like words on a page—there’s something so open with the way that this boy thinks, so unaffected by the concept of secrecy that Akira has come to yearn for. Akechi is only partly to blame for that. 

Only the _clacks_ of wooden staffs hitting each other and panting can be heard in the Kwoon Room. Feet make haste on the training mats, meeting and knowing their dance partner. Sweat begins to pour down the back of their necks as the volume of their attacks increases, and he wonders how long it had been since he felt this.

The dialogue of the fight. The conversation in each strike. The partnership in battle. 

Has he ever had this? 

Finally, after what feels like hours and mere seconds at the same time, drenched in sweat and chest heaving, both of them have their staffs pointed at the other’s temple. 

Silence fills the room before his partner takes a step back, his wooden staff clattering on the floor. His partner must feel it too, the feeling of _something_ in the air—drift compatibility. 

He sticks out his hand. “Sakamoto,” he breathes out, grinning. “Sakamoto Ryuji. It’s nice to meet you, Kurusu.”

He shakes his hand, eyes crinkled with mirth despite how his lungs burn with exertion. “Akira.”

“Huh?”

“Call me Akira. It would be weird if my mech partner and I were still on last name basis, right?” 

Ryuji’s eyes brighten. “Akira, then.” 

Eighty-eight.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading fams 
> 
> [my tumblr](https://kareofbears.tumblr.com)


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